


The Good Old Days

by pauraque



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Forsaken, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, Pandaren - Freeform, Undercity, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pauraque/pseuds/pauraque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A curmudgeonly Forsaken finds out just what all these johnny-come-latelys are good for. (Alternative summary: Back then, we had to walk a mile in the snow uphill both ways just to gut a gnome rogue, and we liked it!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Good Old Days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [voleuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/gifts).



> In recognition of your services as a pinch hitter in Yuletide 2012. Enjoy!

Anastasia rarely had reason to go up to up to the surface anymore, but the Undercity had its own seasons, its own yearly rhythm. In summer the air grew thick and suffocatingly humid, the walls seeming to radiate the heat of hell, while each winter brought back the familiar chill of the grave. The sludge of the moats seemed to glow greener in the spring, while in autumn the main thoroughfares were caked with the mud and crushed leaves that visitors tracked in from above.

It was on just such an autumn day that Anastasia's peaceable misery was so rudely interrupted. She was just returning from a pleasant stroll by the sewers, when something placed itself in her path that was big, round, furry, and obnoxiously alive.

"Master Hartwell," the beast began, making a deep bow. "My name is Mina Snowpaw. I have come to seek your wisdom, and humbly submit myself as a student of the ancient arcane secrets that your people — _oof!_ "

Shoving the pandaren aside, Anastasia stalked away, wishing not for the first time that she could run without her Achilles' tendons falling off. "Ugh," she moaned in dismay. "Not again, not again!"

"I — I'm sorry?" The pandaren — this 'Snowpaw' — hurried to catch up to her, holding up her robes to run and rubbing her solar plexus with a wince. "If I've taken a wrong turn, I apologize. The layout of this city is a bit on the circuitous side. Are you not Anastasia Hartwell, renowned instructor of the arcane arts?"

"First it was the elves," Anastasia grumbled, trudging onward. "And believe me, _that_ was bad enough. Ridiculous fops and bimbos mincing around all over the place, breeding like rabbits, sharing in our conquests, wielding foul paladin magics ... being _pretty_." She shot a dagger look at Snowpaw, whose sweet green eyes were wide and perplexed.

"Er—"

"Then it was the goblins," she went on, pointing with her staff in disdain at one who had just popped through a portal as they passed. "War profiteers, loyal only to the highest bidder!" She aimed a frost nova at Snowpaw's feet, but the pandaren leapt out of the way, scrambling back to her side as Anastasia entered the door of her chamber. "What do they know of the Horde? The Horde as it used to be? They're barely a step above _gnomes_." A deep shudder rattled her bones.

"But I thought— OW!"

Anastasia had tried to slam the door in her face, but Snowpaw had stuck her big, hairy foot in the way. Groaning, Anastasia let the door go and turned to search through the tomes that lay in dusty piles on her table, hoping to find some amateur pamphlet that would satisfy this monstrosity and send her on her way. "And now it's teddy bears," she spat. "What are you going to do when the enemy attacks? _Hug_ them to death?"

Snowpaw was leaning heavily on her staff, grasping her foot, eyes watering. "Well — Warchief Hellscream said —"

Anastasia let out a harsh, screeching cackle that echoed off the chamber's grimy walls. "Hellscream? You'll soon learn how little weight _that_ name carries here. I should reveal my secrets to you, simply because that upstart Hellscream says you belong in the Horde?" She planted her hands down on the table and stared down the pandaren, who looked like a deer in the oncoming lights of a Mechano-Hog. "Understand this, fuzzball. The Horde may have meant something when our Dark Lady pledged herself to it so many years ago. But it is nothing to me now — nothing but a haven for mercenaries, refugees, and other living scum. Give me one good reason to believe you are worthy of what the Horde once was."

Snowpaw drew a breath to answer, but before she could, Anastasia heard the sound of a shadow behind her, and felt cold steel. She looked down, surprised to see a dagger's tip poking out through her chest, where her heart used to be.

"I _beg_ your pardon," she said, raising her hand to cast, but then—

Blue magic burst from Snowpaw's hands, and the room filled with gelid winter wind and the pandaren's shouted incantations. The foolish rogue tried to vanish into darkness, but Snowpaw was quicker — her spell snagged the little bastard by his ankles and tripped him. As he sprawled down onto the floor, Anastasia only caught a glimpse of the delicious terror on his wretched face before the second spell landed, and with a hiss and a bang, he shattered into a thousand shards of ice. The bits tinkled like broken glass as they settled down onto the floor, the desk, and the shelves, and then all was still.

"My apologies, master," Snowpaw said briskly, brushing some sleet from off Anastasia's books. "It would have been more polite to let you deal with the intruder, but when I saw that vile little creature, I forgot myself." She reached behind and, with a grunt, pulled the dagger from Anastasia's back. She gazed at the weapon curiously, turning it over in the gleam of the torchlight. "Your kind does not bleed?" she asked, with a look of interest rather than disgust.

Anastasia grabbed it from her roughly and shook a few drops of embalming fluid from the blade. "Not exactly," she said, lip curling in a sneer.

"Then you need no healing?" Snowpaw asked, intrigued.

Through what was left of her nose, Anastasia snorted. "I wouldn't go that far." She righted a fallen candlestick and headed for the door. "Come on, we'll go to the War Quarter. Father Lazarus still owes me for those cinnamon rolls."

The pandaren's ears perked up, and her eyes lit with a smile. "We? Then you will allow me to learn from you?"

"We'll see," Anastasia said grudgingly, beckoning Snowpaw through the door behind her. "For now, let's leave this to the maintenance crew." She snapped her finger bones at a nearby guard. "They're going to have quite a mess on their hands when the pieces of that gnome thaw out."


End file.
